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This blog is intended to showcase my pictures or those of other photographers who have moved beyond the pretty picture and for whom photography is more than entertainment - photography that aims at being true, not at being beautiful because what is true is most often beautiful..

>>>> Comments, commentary and lively discussions, re: my writings or any topic germane to the medium and its apparatus, are vigorously encouraged.

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BODIES OF WORK ~ PICTURE GALLERIES

  • my new GALLERIES WEBSITE
    ADK PLACES TO SIT / LIFE WITHOUT THE APA / RAIN / THE FORKS / EARLY WORK / TANGLES

BODIES OF WORK ~ BOOK LINKS

In Situ ~ la, la, how the life goes onLife without the APADoorsKitchen SinkRain2014 • Year in ReviewPlace To SitART ~ conveys / transports / reflectsDecay & DisgustSingle WomenPicture WindowsTangles ~ fields of visual energy (10 picture preview) • The Light + BW mini-galleryKitchen Life (gallery) • The Forks ~ there's no place like home (gallery)


Entries from November 1, 2012 - November 30, 2012

Friday
Nov302012

diptych # 17 (ku # 1226-27) ~ show me

Snow flurries / clouds and light ~ Jay, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenAnyone out there making diptychs? If so, can we see them?

FYI, there's another diptych on Pictures. No Words.

FYI # 2, if you like my pictures without words, I'm regularly posting pictures on the Pictures/No Words site - pictures not posted here on The Landscapist.

Wednesday
Nov282012

civilized ku # 2410-13 ~ the myth about talent

Logo ~ Tahawus/Adirondac, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenHugo and Brooklyn ~ Tahawus/Adirondac, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenA subject which has been on my mind for quite some time - it would not be stretching the truth to write, on my mind for decades - is the notion of talent. What follows are some of my thoughts and conclusions on the subject.

I have no doubt having talent is a very viable notion. I also have no doubt some have it, others don't and, going a bit farther down that road, more don't have than do have it. And, as long as I have already gone out on a limb, I will even opine those who have it, have always had it and those don't have it, never will.

(I'll pause here for a moment or two, while those who have been driven into a fit of self-righteous indignation can, hopefully, calm down. During this brief interlude, you might try to imagine the sound of me whistling a happy tune) ....



(whistling)



(more whistling)



(end of whistling)

(take a deep breath.....)

None other than the occasional commenter, Craig Tanner, has chimed in on the subject in his essay, The Myth of Talent. In his essay, Craig writes

.... the truth about talent is this – talent is a set of skills you develop over time through desire.

Craig has taken issue with the textbook / dictionary definition of the word "talent" - a special natural ability or aptitude of superior quality - a concept which he labels as the "Myth of Talent ... a cultural flaw in our self-awareness."

Like many others who have written somewhat dismissively about talent*, Craig writes:

... the gift of natural ability, without the awareness of it, or without passion attached to it, is either an unknown or unfulfilled potential. Even when natural ability is discovered and nurtured, it is only good for one thing – altering the trajectory of your learning curve.

... or, in others words, talent without hard work goes for naught.

That notion, in and of itself, is an absolute Homer Simpson-like no-duh. But, the fly in that ointment is simple - it implies, if you work your ass off at something that lights your fire, you'll end up with talent (or something like it). It is at this point where I need to get off that train (of thought).

First and foremost, working hard at something guarantees nothing other than hard work. No matter how hard someone might work at something, we all know - or should know if we're dealing with reality - there will always be those who can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Of course, that is not to deny some will be rewarded for that hard work with a new set of skills, not talent, but skills. To wit, skill is not talent and talent is not just a set of skills.

IMO, those who are dismissive of the idea of talent as a special natural ability / god-given gift / preternatural ability (pick one descriptor or feel free to make up your own), or who, at the very least, approach the notion in a diminishing manner, are basing their belief on their confusion with the idea of acquiring a skill with that of having a talent.

To be certain, there are many in the picture making world who are very skilled at the craft of making pictures. They regularly make pictures which are widely admired and often imitated. Many enjoy great success in both the serious amateur and the professional picture making worlds. And, there is no denying most have worked hard and long to get there.

However, what they and their pictures lack is that special je ne sais quoi / "genius" which separates their work from that of picture makers with talent. In many cases, the separation between the work of the skilled and that of the talented is more like a crack in the pavement rather than the distance between opposing walls of the Grand Canyon. Nevertheless, there is a difference and it is a meaningful one.

Now, you might be wondering after the last couple entries (re: short supply of words), what brings about this lengthy entry? It's simple really ...

As I was processing the picture at the top of this entry, a picture made by Hugo, it struck me that Hugo is evidencing indications of talent. The indications are evident in Hugo's wide ranging artistic endeavors and sensibilities and they all revolve around the notion of seeing and, in particular, a very acute sense of design and form.

That sense is why, of all of the things Hugo and Brooklyn saw and did at the ghost town and furnace ruins in Tahawus / Adirondac, the only thing he wanted to make a picture of was the logo on a bit of metal railing - FYI, over past several months, as he works on his drawing skills, he has been somewhat obsessed (drawing after drawing) with the idea of having a personal logo for himself. Quite a bit of his work is visually interesting and far more sophisticated than his years on the planet might suggest or explain.

Hugo is displaying a visual / artistic bent at an early age, much like his father - my son, the Cinemascapist. I pulled him (my son) out of school after his sophomore year in high school in order to home school him by means of an graphic art apprenticeship (he had absolutely no interest in picture making at the time) with me. An apprenticeship during which I fostered his natural ability, aka - talent, for design, teaching him only the mechanics, aka - skills, of getting it done.

Long story short, Aaron is now a highly respected graphic designer / art director, hired, with only a high school GED and a portfolio, for a professional college-degree-required position - hired over many college degree applicants. He is also (years later) a picture maker of international reputation and respect.

He accomplished all of this without the hard work required to obtain a formal education or years of OJT. In fact, I would suggest much of his success came to him in a rather easy fashion, which is not to suggest he did not work at it, but I don't believe even he would call it "hard" work ... it all just came "naturally".

All of that written, IMO, if there is a myth about talent, it's that desire and hard work in obtaining skills is the same thing as having talent. It is not. No matter the desire and hard work involved, there is a difference between a person possessing skills and one having talent.

*To be perfectly clear, Craig does not deny that "natural ability" / "gifts" exist.

Tuesday
Nov272012

ku # 1225 ~ pond scum

Algae, AKA - pond scum ~ Newcomb, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenIn yesterday's entry, I noted that words, picturing wise, are in short supply of late. In part, that situation is simply because over the past few years, I have written a zillion or more words, covering a very broad range of topics, about the medium and its apparatus.

Much of that writing, as I have previously noted, was me talking out loud and to myself - a journey with the aim of understanding and codifying my relationship to and with the medium and its apparatus. Suffice it to write and for quite some time, I have been very pleased with the outcome of that experience inasmuch as I have a more developed grasp, intellectual and emotional, regarding the act of picture making and picture viewing (my own and those made by others).

Two quotes - one on the notion of picture making, the other on the experience of picture viewing - which encapsulate much of what I have come to grok, the medium and its apparatus wise, come to mind ....

Quit trying to find beautiful objects to photograph. Find the ordinary objects so you can transform it by photographing it. ~ Morley Baer

The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say, 'There is the surface. Now think - or rather feel, intuit - what is beyond it, what the reality must be like if it looks that way.' Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy... The very muteness of what is, hypothetically, comprehensible in photographs is what constitutes their attraction and provocativeness. ~ Susan Sontag

None of the preceding is to write that I have figured everything out because, in fact, I have not. In a very real sense, I hope to figure more of "it" out, a little bit at a time, as time and experience(s) go by. IMO, learning is a life long endeavor, the pursuit of which never ends.

Monday
Nov262012

ku # 1224 / civilized ku # 2406-09 ~ a new way of looking at things

Words have been in short supply of late so I'm leaning toward a new way of posting pictures without words.

I'll still be posting pictures with words but, when I'm not wordifying (or if my words are too much to bear), you can see my pictures - like those in this entry - without words here.

Saturday
Nov242012

civilized ku # 2405 ~ white Saturday

Snowy Main Street ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenYesterday was Black Friday. I took Hugo and his Au Sable Forks girl friend (not, girlfriend) deep in to the Adirondacks where we encountered not a single person during a 3 hour walk about.

Today was a kinda White Saturday. I stayed closer to home, although, we did buy a new car.

Thursday
Nov222012

civilized ku # 2404 ~ unlike Mitt Romney ... 

Zeronine-Moon and Edison-Ron ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen.... our cats know big bird - our 24lb. turkey - is dead and soon, they'll be feasting on the remains.

Happy Thanksgiving - may you all have many blessings for which to be thankful.

Tuesday
Nov202012

decay # 47 ~ brazenly smutty food shot* / vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas

Pumpkin pie, mold, grapes • click to embiggenDuquesne Club CookbookOver the 35 years of my pro picture making career, I made hundreds of "brazenly smutty" food shots. Making such food pictures was a large part of my pictures for commerce life.

In many of those pictures, while the food was a featured player, the purpose of those pictures was to help sell a product other than the food - products such as CorningWare or French's condiments (French's Mustard), spices, and cooking/ baking products. Other food pictures where about the food itself - monthly restaurant reviews for Pittsburgh Magazine or recipes in the Duquense Club Cookbook (I made all of the pictures in the book as well as designing the book and supervising all the production). In any case, the food was always, first and foremost, picture perfect.

That written, it has been suggested by some that my decay pictures are a late-life rebellion against all of that brazenly smutty food shot stuff, a sort of Post-Traumatic Pictured Perfection Disorder. While there might be a deeply buried grain of truth in that notion, the idea of PTPPD belies the fact of my lifelong genuine interest in things decayed / decaying.

I can't fully explain the interest but the first word which comes to mind is patina, as in, a surface appearance of something grown beautiful especially with age or use . I am well aware many would take issue with the idea of beautiful being associated with decay. However, at least on the surface of things, that's how I see it.

That written, beneath the visual surface of things, I see a culture, based on non-sustainable consumption of the planet's resources, in a state of decay. I also also see much more than a smidgeon of Vanitas, a type of symbolic work of art associated with still life painters / painting in Flanders and the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Latin word means "vanity" and loosely translated corresponds to the meaninglessness of earthly life and the transient nature of all earthly goods and pursuits.

So, rather than just a case of PTPPD, perhaps my interest (at least my late life interest) in decay is also an up-close-and-personal expanded awareness of the transient nature of all earthly goods and things ... flowers wilt, food decays, and silver is of no use to the soul.

*phrase borrowed from Set the Stage, Then the Table ~ NYT, 11/20/12.

Saturday
Nov172012

squares² # 6 ~ common beauty / beauty in common (made easy)

People + food + civilized ku + ku • click to embiggenIt's finally here, the amazing picture making thing you've all been waiting for ...

Have you ever wanted to take a beautiful photograph EVERY time? Well with the _____, you can! The _____ is designed to make every photo beautiful because of it’s artistic and amazing effects. It’s created to take what you see and make it into something even more beautiful than it already is. It makes photos have real meaning, and it makes photos tell real stories.*

Picture making meaning, beauty, artistry, and EVERY-click-of-the-shutter success made easy. Haven't we all been yearning - in fact, secretly lusting - for a picture making thing which can " take what you see and make it into something even more beautiful than it already is." Who would have dreamed that a picture perfect world is just a picture making thing purchase away?

I mean, it's like getting your money for nothin' and your chicks for free. And, you don't even have go all bangin' on the bongos like a chimpanzee.

*taken from a marketing email for a picture making device which shall remain nameless.